Why Sometimes You Need to Let Go to Get Better
When you want to connect with an audience, analytics are a gift. When you need to remember why you’re doing this in the first place, they can be a curse.
Sometimes you need to stop and remember why you want to build a platform in the first place.
Too Much of a Good Thing
Starbucks brought the obsessive coffee culture of the Pacific Northwest to the world. From Boston to Beijing, caffeine fanatics can get their fix any way they want it. Cappuccino, latte, macchiato, frappuccino, hot tea, iced tea, iced coffee, and so on.
Even the purest of coffee drinks, those who say no to cream and sugar, had no shortage of options. Sumatra, Ethiopian Sidamo, Guatemala Antigua. If customers valued variety, Starbucks went out of their way to deliver.
But in the mid-2000s, sales started to slump. In an effort to satisfy every customer demand, the company seemed to have lost its focus on the center of its business: coffee.
In 2007, as part of a renewed emphasis on quality, Starbucks announced the release of its Pikes Place Roast. It was intended to be a recreation of the very coffee served at their first store. It was a return to the basics, a symbolic gesture that the company had not forgotten what mattered most. Today, Pikes Place Roast is brewed fresh on the hour in every store worldwide.
Stats Can Wait
Please understand, data and analytics are a tremendous resource for your platform. They help you connect with your audience and write more focused content. But when you hit the inevitable lulls or plateaus in your audience response (it will happen), you need something else to get you through.
You need to remember why you’re doing this in the first place.
There are a number of good reasons to write blogs:
- To raise your platform’s visibility
- To articulate your platform’s vision
- To network with people who can help you
- To be aware of what your audience is saying
- To mentor the next generation of leaders
These are great reasons. Except, they aren’t actually reasons. They’re benefits! It turns out, there’s really just one great reason why you should be blogging:
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When you pay too much attention to the stats, you’ll inevitably get discouraged. At times, you’ll want to quit. When the data starts to drag you down, it’s time to set it aside and just write, write, and write some more. Eventually, you’ll reclaim your why and the stats will follow.
